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Every day the FlightBliss email inbox is filled with offers for discount airline tickets, car rentals, and First Class upgrade specials. Frankly, few are very interesting. Occasionally, though, one will catch our collective eye, such as this recent pitch from Budget Rent-A-Car and Continental Airlines' OnePass:
For a limited time, you can earn 9,999 bonus miles when you rent with Budget for five consecutive days or more.
That's a tempting offer-let's look at the fine print and see how it holds up.
All arrangements have to be made through Continental's website using a provided Budget discount code. We booked some imaginary rentals and were happy to find that using the code yielded lower-than-standard rates. Budget's stipulation that the rental must be "for five consecutive days or more," can be an advantage, too. We found full-week rates were lower than those for 5 days (as is often the case). An economy car in Orlando priced out at $125 a week, and a mid-size in Chicago was $230. Not bad, even without the free Continental miles.
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Thirty days after the rental car is returned (deadline: Jan 31, 2008), 9,999 miles will be credited to a required Continental Airlines OnePass account.
What can you do with 9,999 miles? Having them in your OnePass account can actually give you a benefit that money can't buy. Continental's program is among the most restrictive when it comes to purchasing miles, and it doesn't allow members to buy more than 25% of the miles needed for any award. If you have 20,001 miles to put toward a 30,000-mile upgrade, Continental won't let you buy the rest. Having an extra 9,999 in your account can come in handy. Keep in mind, too, that your OnePass miles can be used with Continental's many SkyTeam partners.
Bottom line: If you need to rent a car for five or more days between now and Jan 31, 2008, book this deal through Budget and Continental and you can add power and flexibility to your OnePass account. What's not to like?
Important: The Budget car rental for this offer MUST be booked through Continental's website, where you'll also find terms and conditions, and further information on taxes and fees: continental.com
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I learned from First Class Flyer about purchasing Starwood points for 3.5 cents a mile, and converting to frequent flyer miles in increments of 20k or more for a 25% bonus, which is effectively 2.8 cents a mile. Last year, you could purchase up to 100k miles. However, this year, it appears the limit has been reduced to only 20k. Although still a good price, it looks like this path to relatively inexpensive miles is now quite limited, unless I'm missing something. --JH--
In December you ran an article about presenting your "Premium" membership to other airlines to see if they would match the membership level and give you a membership in their group. I wrote to Continental, Delta, and American Airlines. Withim 2 weeks, I received a "Gold Elite" membership with Continental Airlines and shortly after that I received a "Gold Medallion" membership with Delta Airlines. American Airlines sent me a very nice e-mail telling me that if I could fly with AA just 10,000 miles before the end of March 2008, they to would send me their Gold card. Thank you First Class Flyer for the good news. JP
trying to take advantage of the Continental/Budget 9999 car rental. article says to use provided code number to get promotion but cannot find the promotion code?
If the deadline is Jan 2008 why is it still on line?
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